Don't know if anyone cares, but the street for DA:O has been broken and is ready to be purchased for your gaming pleasure.

Just picked up my copy from EB now.

yay :D been looking forward to a decent western rpg

gonna wait and see what my friend says about it before purchasing.

Yeah, I mean it's 129.95 for the special edition, bit of an ask but ah well.

If you buy from EB you get some random unlockable s***, but it sort of doesn't seem worth it. *shrug*

is the digital deluxe edition on steam the same as the special edition? its only $65US.

I got my deluxe edition from Steam for $55US, I don't mind waiting a bit, but still..I wants it now!!

Yeah, I'm cut that I didn't get it while it was $55 US, I saw it when it first went up at $55 and thought wow thats cheap, then the next day I went to buy it and it had been fixed and put up to $65 :(

Still bought it anyway though cos its far better than $130.

its 49.99USD on my steam..

thats for the normal game konstie. theres a deluxe edition for $65

is this single or multiplayer?

single

After smashing it for a few hours, really seems worth the dosh. I'm very impressed, the control system could use a little tweaking and having some player voice acting ala mass effect would've been tits, which was somethign I was expecting, considering it *is* bioware, but apart from that it really is an involving game.

Go forth and spread ye cash on this one folks, it's a decent ride so far. Also, for those who bitch about the point, click and run thing, you can still use WSAD. Saw a few gripes with that on a google search.

Bought it on steam. Having some problems downloading. Cant seem to connect to any australian servers (using a filter) :(

steam pre-load server full can't dl :|

Yeah, I've been trying yesterday and today to preload it with Steamwatch on, and nothing came through. I bit the bullet tonight and turned off Steamwatch, figured I'd burn some quota so I could at least play it tomorrow and it downloaded fine, but it seems to have only used 5gig of my quota (when its a 10gig download), so I dunno if it ended up getting half of it off a local server or what.

From downloading borderlands and monitoring the connections on tcpview, steam doesnt seem to start the download until it gets 3 connections to 3 separate servers. Atm with steamwatch on, it only connects to 3fl and telstra, it tries to connect to a 3rd one but steamwatch is denying everything. It doesnt seem like there is a 3rd australian content server that has DA pushed to it :(

^^ lame if that's whats happening

Eh blow my theory out of the water. Im connected to 3fl and telstra atm and after aaaaages of doing nothing it finally started the download. horrah

The game is unlocking for me from Steam. Taking long enough to decrypt though.

Where do you enter the codes to get free items :(

if it's through steam I don't believe you need to, otherwise you have to go onto the social.bioware site.

The game is unlocking for me from Steam. Taking long enough to decrypt though.

Bastard ;) Mine is still downloading Argh!

After smashing it for a few hours, really seems worth the dosh. I'm very impressed, the control system could use a little tweaking and having some player voice acting ala mass effect would've been tits, which was somethign I was expecting, considering it *is* bioware, but apart from that it really is an involving game.

Go forth and spread ye cash on this one folks, it's a decent ride so far. Also, for those who bitch about the point, click and run thing, you can still use WSAD. Saw a few gripes with that on a google search.

It has Captain Janeway in it right? (Kate Mulgrew) she is cute for someone a bit older than me. And a Captain of a starship to boot!

Yeah, Janeway was nice. Would have been awesome to see her and 7of9 go for it.

im gonna get the game as soon as its on the ga content servers.

I want to play it. Stupid work :( It's waiting for me when I get home.

Updating at like 1 byte a sec, sad face.

normal version is available on ga server but deluxe version isn't. unless they just use diferent app ids for the store and both downloads are the same

I got some weird s*** going on, downloaded Dragon Age last night like I said and it used 5 gig of my quota (for a 10 gig download), woke up this morning and now that 5 gig is magically back on my quota like it was never used.

What isp? With node, if you watch your usage intently, the usage first goes metered before it goes back to unmetered. Its like watching a stats roller coaster!

It's awesome! My father (in game RIP) reminded me of Russell Crowe heh heh!

And the king sounds like a bit of a wimp.

I miss Mum already (RIP).

So far so good!

The character that sounds like Janeway (assumed correct) isn't good looking, in game..

It also has claudia black, who seems to be everywhere these days, the other game im currently playing is uncharted 2.

But yes, top game so far, I personally am not hardcore DnD / RPG so the changes they made make the game flow a lot easier and less mucking around(i.e making sure X person is carrying the extra set of heavy armour because Y person is piss weak) and more story bashing.

buy this game bitches, make my shares skyrocket!

I like it so far. Reminds me of playing Neverwinter Nights.

I purchased this game just for stinky.

is it co-op at all?

no

I like it so far. Reminds me of playing Neverwinter Nights.

I have that game. After the enourmous amount of patches it is OK. This game is better so far.

Really cool so far, except wtb a fkn healer already so sick of having to spam pots in some fights, plenty of warriors / rogues to get (that i've seen so far but little healers).

Really misleading threat title there, and sif buy from EB.

is it worth the extra $15 for the deluxe version?

is it worth the extra $15 for the deluxe version?

The game is good regardless.

The character that sounds like Janeway (assumed correct) isn't good looking, in game..

It also has claudia black, who seems to be everywhere these days, the other game im currently playing is uncharted 2.

But yes, top game so far, I personally am not hardcore DnD / RPG so the changes they made make the game flow a lot easier and less mucking around(i.e making sure X person is carrying the extra set of heavy armour because Y person is piss weak) and more story bashing.

That is her (Kate Mulgrew aka Captain Janeway) but she does the role well.

And who could deny Morrigan joining the party with those beaut tittie witties?

Lots of fun and some gruesome cutscenes yet it got through unscated and L4D2 did not?

Killing orcs is different to killing zombies... DUH!

What rating are people giving this game? Thinking of buying next week on PC (f*** xbox)- they say its a 100+ hour epic!!!!

naturally bioware will cash in with some DLC as well.

is it worth the extra $15 for the deluxe version?

I figured it was, cos part of what it comes with is a big chunk of DLC which I think sells for $10 - $12 by itself, and I would have bought that anyway. Plus you get some ingame items which aren't actually crap and are quite useful.

You get the soundtrack as well, downloaded to a "Bonus" folder in the game's folder inside Steam, and while I haven't listened to it yet, the music in the game is pretty damn awesome, so yeah, its something I don't mind having.

is there any form of multiplayer ?

read the thread fgt.

i saw the no to co-op, but i thought that might have just meant like lan or some s*** i dunno

seriously why do these f***ing devs make games with no multiplayer? what is hte point of making a game to play by yourself?

if a game doesnt have multiplayer i dont know why you freaks buy it

go cry to your friends on wow.

man theres a lot of talking what the hell?

Trauma - How so mate? The street release *was* broken and now people can sell it? How is that a misleading thread title?

if a game doesnt have multiplayer i dont know why you freaks buy it

Reckon, I lost interest in single player games in 1993 the first time I played Doom on a LAN

man theres a lot of talking what the hell?

Its crazy! Who would ever expect that in an rpg!

Not sure if I like it or not. Game is so f***ing hard even on normal to the point where I wonder if its possible to pass sections as certain classes without you being a healer. Even only 2 hours into game or something I come to nearly a brick wall with the stupid lighting fire in the tower part. I shouldn't be forced to play a healer because there is a room with 6 orc archers and a mage blasting away at me, when I only have like 10 health pots. I also shouldn't have to change the game to easy mode either to pass parts as say an archer or rogue

last edited by DM at 19:20:48 05/Nov/09

purchased the deluxe. now hopefully it will download off ga servers.

dm you can change the difficulty at any time

I know you can but my point is why do they seemingly force you to play on the eaisest difficulty because they refuse to give any NPCs you come across healing spells.

Perhaps you need to change the way you're playing, use pause more often, use cover. I know the part you're talking about and I did it without a healer....

konstie br0 i quit wow a long time ago!@

Reckon, I lost interest in single player games in 1993 the first time I played Doom on a LAN

i love trog

woot downloading from gamearena at 1.8MB/s

freys steam filter works so much better than steamwatch :)

last edited by ravn0s at 19:44:52 05/Nov/09

damn only took 1hr 40 mins to download. probably wont get to play it tonight though :(

Its crazy! Who would ever expect that in an rpg!

Possibly, I can't say I've played many rpg games. My introduction to rpg games were Bethseda games which don't seem so long winded, morrowind, oblivion, fallout. Their engine has pretier graphics too.

I havent spent much time though so will still play on to see whats it all about, I'm only up to the part where you get rescued.

But this game seriously has a lot of talking right at the start before any action happens.
One minor gripe so far (only played for a few hours) is that it seems easy to miss quests by hitting a story transition point without realising that the story is going to move on, i spoke to my brother before fully exploring the castle and the game transitioned to the next section without me realising that was going to happen.
Also does the text seem a little small to anyone else? Not unreadable just small.

last edited by Bah at 22:33:14 05/Nov/09

My opinion is, it kicks ass thus far.
I bought this since I actually wanted a story driven game I couldn't stand playing MMO's anymore with no real story where all I was doing was NEXT NEXT NEXT CONTINUE ACCEPT without reading and just grinding to the next, Kill XX mob 1000 times.


I'm not sure why some of you bought this and are saying it has 'too much talking/text'

Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate Series, Knights of the old Republic etc. etc. etc. all these sorts of games had walls upon walls of text/speech if you actually listened/read/followed the story word for word.
RPG's are supposed to be in essence, interactive books/movies.

played it for about 2hrs. im enjoying it. still getting used to the combat. can you toggle in and out of combat or it is just auto?

Game is so f***ing hard even on normal to the point where I wonder if its possible to pass sections as certain classes without you being a healer.

I think maybe you're doing it wrong, cos I had no healer for that bit and had no trouble with it at all. Even on the big boss you fight at the top of the tower I only lost one guy (and it was just that s*** no-name Tower Guard guy who you know is going to die as soon as you get him in your party). I think I've only completely died once, and that was right back at the start when I went out to get the blood for my joining, mostly cos I was still not really sure wtf I was doing at that point. Since then its felt balanced pretty good difficulty wise, the fights are challenging and satisfying but its not making me tear my hair out in frustration.

I guess, if you want some tips, I pause the action a lot to give commands and assign specific targets to my guys and micromanage stuff a bit, not a lot, cos the tactics stuff is pretty damn cool, but just enough to make sure everyone isn't being retarded. Also make sure you get your rogues in position behind stuff so they get backstab/flanking bonuses to their attacks. And conversely, try to deny the enemy getting flanking bonuses on your guys by positioning them well.

I usually focus at least a couple of guys per target too instead of spreading everyone out to fight their own separate targets. I often have my tank guy up there causing threat and hunkering down behind a shield in a defense stance, then a couple of melee damage dealers smashing on stuff, and my mage either taking out ranged guys who are sitting back annoying me, or just joining in on what the melee is smashing.

Also, theres syngergies between a lot of skills, like if you get Morrigan to freeze someone, then you crit the frozen person with a rogue, the frozen dude will shatter and be insta-killed.

Yeah i died a few times at the bottom of that tower, but then i decided to try and hang back rather than rush in and get spammed by the arrow guys, basically forced me to micromanage my guys a bit more and use the hold command so they didnt just all run off in different directions (i guess you can better customise their combat tactics menu too?)
And when i opened doors, rather than rush in id have a look to see if there were archers, and back off around the corner if there were so the enemy would draw closer.

backstab/flanking bonuses

how do you know when you are getting these bonuses, i am playing a rogue and was trying to position him behind enemies (seems to be the thing to do with rogues in rpgs), but had nfi if i was getting crits.

Even on the big boss you fight at the top of the tower

i felt like i cheesed him a bit because Spoiler:
he would occasionally decide to chase one guy and i just controlled him running about while my other guys used ranged attacks, not sure if that was by design... did i draw aggro or something?

and my mage either taking out ranged guys

id send my dog in, as ranged guys get interrupted if someone melees them, at least at low levels anway.. id guess they might skill up and be able to do melee bow attacks later on.

how do you know when you are getting these bonuses

Yeah, its not very clear. I'm playing a rogue as well and I'm using dual weapons, and I found the combat animations change from my character swinging his swords/daggers and slashing with them, to a sort of overhead two-handed stabbing animation. There doesn't seem to be any info text or indicator or anything though that shows you're successfully flanking/backstabbing which is annoying. Also annoying that the damage and status text comes up over your target instead of over your character, so when theres multiple people hitting the same thing its almost impossible to know what damage you're actually doing.

id guess they might skill up and be able to do melee bow attacks later on.

Yeah, I think theres some archer talents that let you fire point blank range, and some others that let you fire without being interrupted, but they don't seem to have them, at least so far.

played a cpl of hours and liked the twist in the quest plots.. i'll play some more tomorrow

this game is awesome so far.

Re: Bah
Spoiler:
I believe this is one of the few ways to kill him, he is way too powerful to just stand and bash and keep healing. The city guard or whatever extra dude you get has the ability to draw attention, Taunt?, cant recall but thats a good way to make him chase. I have a fighter who was pretty strong and had to kill him with this tatic, so imagine rogues etc will find it even harder.


I like the lack of resting required and the auto health recovery if you just stand around for a bit.

My only problem is I don't look around enough or assess the situation, few times I entered a room and bashed the dudes and then realize there were things in the room / near by that would have made that battle a lot easier. But meh, I'm a meat head fighter...

last edited by pixem at 11:45:11 06/Nov/09

Yeah i died a few times at the bottom of that tower, but then i decided to try and hang back rather than rush in and get spammed by the arrow guys

I try and take down the archers ASAP. Loving this game.

Updates to Dragon Age - Origins have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Dragon Age - Origins

Fixed potential corruption of character statistics

Fixed portrait appearance sliders when importing a character from the downloadable Character Creator

Fixed import for preset face settings from the downloadable Character Creator

Made Easy difficulty easier

Slightly increased attack, defense, and damage scores for all party members at Normal difficulty

Fixed video issues when running on a very wide screen display, including ATI Eyefinity displays

Its an awesome game, i'm loving it. the combat is a real challenge.

I play on Hard mode, its great that the game is such a challenge, i'd rather have difficulty & have to think, i've re-done some fights many times and worked out better strategies.

I'd prefer to have the game last longer because of difficulty then breeze through it in 20 hours.

I just wish they had an option to slow down the speed during combat, so it wasn't either Full speed or pause, you could slow down the action a bit and assess how things are going on the fly.

The city guard or whatever extra dude you get has the ability to draw attention, Taunt?

Yeah, thats what my city guard guy did, he taunted and got the attention of the boss, but then Spoiler:
the ogre picked him up in its hand and start beating the living s*** out of him and squeezed him till he died a horrible death.


Luckily, he took long enough to do that that it gave my other guys enough opportunity to bring him down in the meantime :P

The city guard or whatever extra dude you get has the ability to draw attention, Taunt?

Yeah, thats what my city guard guy did, he taunted and got the attention of the boss, but then Spoiler:the ogre picked him up in its hand and start beating the living s*** out of him and squeezed him till he died a horrible death.

Luckily, he took long enough to do that that it gave my other guys enough opportunity to bring him down in the meantime :P

Isn't that how the wimpy king died?

I am now in this dreamworld like place. Is bizarre. But just keeps getting better story and character wise.

I am now in this dreamworld like place. Is bizarre.

The fade? I haven't got to that in the main campaign yet (though it seems you can do bits of it in any order you want, so maybe I'm just doing stuff in a different order), but I started a new character last night, a mage, and you go into the fade as part of his origin story. Pretty cool!

I am now in this dreamworld like place. Is bizarre.

The fade? I haven't got to that in the main campaign yet (though it seems you can do bits of it in any order you want, so maybe I'm just doing stuff in a different order), but I started a new character last night, a mage, and you go into the fade as part of his origin story. Pretty cool!

I agree. How I ended up here no idea but I had to battle another tower to get here. Pretty cool really. You will enjoy that bit when you tackle it.

Spoiler:

the ogre picked him up in its hand and start beating the living s*** out of him and squeezed him till he died a horrible death.



I've played a few Bioware CRPG's in my time, from BG1 with its 5 discs, BG2 and NWN etc. I've never experienced that, possibly because its not standard DnD but I thought it was a pretty awesome battle. I flipped out with the range of attacks he threw at me. Possibly my favourite moment so far, still early days!

Very good game, done the tower boss.
Not sure why, but I'm playing on Normal as well.
And I had no trouble tank-and-spanking the big boss guy.

My main is a mage though, so the spam and heals from that may have helped.
The burst DPS from mages is very very high.

I died at the Big Boss a couple of times.

I laughed my arse off when he
Spoiler:

Picked up my mage and beat the s*** out of him as above



Then I realized something really cool, that made it a bit easier for me
Spoiler:

If one of your dudes is picked up, use Shield Bash or, I think, another stun and he drops them!

Spoiler:

I also found using the flaming weapons spell made a big difference






That is cool, I really like how the game doesn't explain every puzzle to you like some.


edit: spoiler fail

Started a new assassin specced character (Lv 8 atm) and taking things much slower and actually bothering to use the pause feature more than normal. Also instead of just running off randomly I found the main healer character as soon as I was able to freely travel around and it has made the game so much more fun. Just slayed my first technical dragon and bloody christ was it hard! On normal it wiped the floor with me in a matter of seconds and even on easy I was only just able to kill it. Really kick ass death animation with my guy too.

alright, downloading now on steam. from the reports looks like i won't regret it!

tips ? i'll prob go a mage or assassin.

mage will be the eaiser choice since you get access to healing magic right away. Anything else is obviously taking the harder road until you get your healer NPC character. If you don't know where they are, then it could be anywhere from 4 to 10+ hours till you get them.

Must be missing something because im lvl 9 and havent had a sniff of a healer character to bring into my fold. Have had every other damn class though :(. Sadly the person i would kick out once i do find a healer is the one ive been befriending in hopes if some sexy times. oh well!

Havent met a dragon either. guess its just the different routes you take.

also.. wtf 2:40am :/

last edited by CSIRAC at 03:43:21 07/Nov/09

Hah, I've been trying to befriend that Morrigan chick for sexy times, just cos shes such its such a challenge, shes one crazy hardass bitch. But now Alistair is starting to hate me, which also sucks, cos hes awesome and hes also my main tank :(

I just finished RedCliff and Alistair started hating on me because I Spoiler:
chose to murder the arl's son to get rid of the demon
. I thought as far as my choices went, that was the better choice too!

But yeah, I'm really loving the choices and the moral dilemnas in the game. So many games claim to have these deep moral decisions you have to make, but it inevitably turns into having a few options where one is obviously evil and one is obviously good. Whereas so far in Dragon Age, the major choices you have to make, theres no real clear cut evil and good, even when you choose what you think is a relatively "good" option, bad s*** still happens to people, and you still have live with the consequences of what you've done. Good and bad are more concepts that are relative to people's point of view (either NPCs or your party members). Absolutely awesome.

Someone tell me how to do the whole spoiler thing?

Hah, I've been trying to befriend that Morrigan chick for sexy times

If you save all the gifts you find, talk to her often asking her about her past and be nice/joking with her, you can bed her as soon as you get to the camp. Morri is sitting on 99 love for me and keeps having talks to me about being scared of love. Hah. Also, dragon i'm talking about comes from her "personal story" she gives when she loves you

Also anyone able to tell me how the s*** to unlock blood mage? I know it has to do with the redcliff demon thing but no matter what I try I just cannot do it. Everyone says bargin with the demon in the fade but Either option I pick just leads me to a fight where I have no say in the matter. Do I have to have a mage main to do this as being a rogue makes me send morrigan or wynne in there instead.

You do spoilers by putting <spoiler> tags around the text you want to be spoilered out.

Like <spoiler>This is a spoiler</spoiler>

The only thing that loves me is my dog, unfortunately I can't have sex with the dog.

I've been liking it a bit more with more action and the choices you get to make. Can someone make a spoiler of where the healer is though? I guess I could google it. A mistake I made was to auto-level ... didnt realise what I was doing at the beginning and I accidentaly spec'd myself as a templar :/

DM to unlock blood mage (i think):

Spoiler:
that guy you befriend at the magi academy place, Jowan, is a blood mage. if you take a certain story path (you run into him again in radcliffe castle) then he'll teach it to you i think.


i didn't get blood mage though, i've gone spiritual healer for teh spams

also i got a mage character pretty early in, straight after Spoiler:
the big battle thing where logairn (or whatever his name is) betrays the grey wardens and they all die. when my dude woke up it was the witch of the wilds and her daughter with massive cans who healed me. and the witch sends her daughter along to help me. she is a mage and can also teach you how to be a shapeshifter.


last edited by taggs at 07:42:35 07/Nov/09

For the healer
Spoiler:
Wynne, the healer, is found in the mage tower as soon as your able to travel after doing the short stop in lothering. To get there go to the dock near the tower and talk to the guard. He requires a bit of coercing on your part though. Intimidating worked for me though. She is behind the main entrance door which seals after you go in so if you plan on getting her, be ready to clear the entire mage tower and an extremely long, and drawn out fade battle. Oh and if you dont accept her right away (which morrigan hates btw) there is a chance you are forced into a fight with her. Watch for that. Just tell Morri where to stick it and accept wynne in


2 thing though

1.) Love the effect they put on the demons when they talk. Multiple voices at once but all distorted.

2.) What the f*** is with the female combat walking animations? It looks like they are s***ting as they walk. No on noticed how ungodly this looks? Male looks fine I suppose but he suffers from the same problem really.

last edited by DM at 13:30:23 07/Nov/09

Turns out once you get your "rep" high enough with people they gain buffs due to your leadership. Got it with the bow chick. Sadly shes still gonna be the first to go :(

hmmm, good rep everywhere eh?

i mite give this a go:

also, i prefer single player games, coz i dont have the time to invest in multiplayer games (for long term stuff, i got time to jump on a tf2 server and rocket some nubs)

I know that morrigan gives you magic boost buff and a certain extra character (which i wont name for spoiler reasons) gives you a dex buff. I cant remember what anyone else gives though.

Also it's real fun kissing morrigan in public because she always hangs s*** on alistar for watching or making some comment

I don't think the characters give the buffs to your character, they just get the buffs themselves (at least thats how I read it). When you look at the tooltips of the skills they get when you earn rep with them it says something like "This character gets a bonus to dexterity due to your inspiring leadership".

Also, it seems morrigan doesn't go in for the girl on girl action, I can't get her to get interested in me :( Oh well, I got the french bard chick interested, she seems like shes up for a bit.

What happens if your character is a dwarf? Can you do some interracial kinky dwarf-on-human sexy time? Cos I think that might be pushing the boundaries of what I'm willing to watch.

I guess so. I'm not planning on playing a dwarf anytime soon so I can't tell you. Also I only know of 3 people you can actually bed but ill try for the bard chick too now I guess and see how that turns out

I'll definitley check this out. Judging by the amount of nerdage in this thread, I better wait till exams are over first.

Morrigan is so hot! But a bad attitude. I really can't see myself wanting to have sex with her. Of course sex starved as I am...

Anyone else notice how brutal walking bomb is for mages? It hits your own people but good god is it the slaughter of melee mobs. 1 explosion will either kill or seriously wound anything near it and after that the battle is easy. Even on bosses it's a small DoT which adds up over time.

I'm starting an arcane shapshifter mage me thinks. Not too sure on the shapeshifter part so I may go spirit healer for res yet

Generally speaking your party cant take a pack of mobs that of a yellow name tag can they? I should stop trying to be cool and taking everything on :/ ran into a 4 pack of dragonkin with yellow coloured names. got spanked for 30 mins trying stubbornly to kill them.

just got morrigan in my party. time to sex her up.

I keep pissing her off by making out with bar wenches and underaged orphans.

Wow you can make out with orphans?

Not like their dad is gonna stop you.

Just f***ed the bard chick. She does girl on girl for those wondering too. God getting her bar that high took long. Unlike morri who you can get 10 - 20 points at a time, you only ever get like 2 or 3 points with lelianna, and she needs to be around 95 before you can bed her I think.

I find the completely opposite, I find I can only get 2 or 3 points at a time with morrigan, but 8 or 9 or even once 15 points at a time with leliana. Wonder what affects that...

Spoiler:

When doing the Sacred Ashes quest, accepting kologrim's offer of putting blood on them will force you to kill leliana. If you want to keep boning her dont do this.

ahah dm.. so doing that next play through

spoiler question:

Spoiler:
anyone know if its worth paying 10 gold to wade to use the drake scales to make your armour? i wouldnt mind saving that 10g if it makes no difference..its anohter 10 bag slots!
edit: stumbled on this: http://au.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dragonage/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-52101317&pid=920668 you get what you pay for :)


last edited by CSIRAC at 04:19:35 08/Nov/09

I'm going to sleep with Alister, he's got to be gay the big pansy.

I ditched Alister first chance I got, dirty Human.

I'm playing a City Elf that hates Humans. I've taken every chance to kill humans that I've been given.

Spoiler:

Morrigan loves it.



I hope I get an option somewhere that lets me turn in one of my party for power and much $'s. I've got enough humans to feed whoever wants them hahh.

Such an awesome game, the missus is starting to get pissed I'm not spending any time with her. Argh!

[nerdage]Anyone notice the distinct abundance of camel toe when the female character's aren't wearing any armour?[/nerdage]

so failing all my exams because of this game

I just need to hold out for 3 more days.. hopefully I'll make it

Alistair is awesome, I take him with me everywhere just cos hes got so many cool lines (ended up making him my tank). I'm playing my character as a bit of an unscrupulous bitch, not evil so much as opportunistic and not afraid to murder children if its for the greater good. Most of the time Alistair doesn't like what I'm doing, and his approval rating has started to slip into hostile, which is starting to make me sad now cos whenever I talk to him hes all mean and stuff towards me :( I miss the old, fun loving joking Alistair :(

lol Khel, I'm also playing a bit like that, except that all Humans MUST die given the opportunity.

I've killed merchants that I wanted to sell too :(

I'm about to make a dwarf out of sheer curiosity.

Spoiler:
Went back on my mage and reloaded the part where you can contaminate the ashes. Chose not to and save Lelieana which caused the Reaver leader to attack me. After I killed him I noticed he dropped a horn. Blew it without reading what it did and got ass f***ed by a high dragon that landed. He literaly almost killed me just by landing on the ground. Managed to kill it (only just, and this was after changing to easy and my characters are all 11 - 12) and christ it dropped like 9 items, including a full armor set, some weapons and a dragon scale quest item. Watch out for that damn horn when you get it! Don't go blowing it willy nilly.

i redeemed the code for dlc. is it possible to pause the downloads? just the f***ing stone golem group mate thing is 500mb :/

DM:

Spoiler:
Funnily i got up to that part and i wasnt paying too much attention and thought summoning the dragon was part of what i had to do.. got spanked pretty hard. Didnt think of dropping it to easy to kill it though, dont think i would have done it anyway. Ill go back later and kick its ass.

As for the dragon scale. I managed to kill 4 dragonkin on the way to the mountaintop and got 4 scales. Give it to wade and he makes a nice set of armor for you. Also, pay him the gold ;).

I made my dwarf and lets just say that for everyone thinking of doing this prepare to lose all your DLC items due to the storyline. Lelieana is gonna get her some dwarf meat now. Wonder if you can give wynne what for too? anyone even bothered attempting that? lol

It seems the only 4 people who you can do the relationship thing with is Morrigan, Zevran, Alistair and Leliana. Zevran will even do some man-on-man action if you're into that sort of thing.

Zevran will even do some man-on-man action if you're into that sort of thing.

Is that why you moved to Melbourne ?

Wouldn't I move to sydney if thats what I was chasing?

Noone in my group likes me, wtf.

Anyone else getting massive load times with this game? I've got a clean install of W7 on a new PC and I'm waiting for upto a minute at times for loading between areas. Saints Row 2 loads up in seconds and is a massive sandbox game, this thing can take a minute to load a tiny area.

Nah, I don't get massive load times, although I've noticed a few people on the bioware forums complaining about load times too (usually stuff like long load times when loading the random encounters, when you're travelling from place to place), so I guess its a bug or something.

Long load times occurs after a long, long period of play it seems.
As I had the same thing and I highly doubt it's my PC, unless its a a Vista/Win7 thing.

i7 920, 6gb ram, gtx 275 etc.

Mages/Blood Mage Specialisation:
Spoiler:
If you enter the fade and save the kid you can gain the blood mage specialisation it seems, I however, chose to kill him, because he was annoying, and to teach his even more annoying pretentious mother a lesson :)
My question is, does anybody know if/where/when else you get this specialisation?


last edited by Mephz at 11:26:04 09/Nov/09

I've got quick load times.

I notice that long load times only occur if you're multitasking something thats also accessing your HD, even if its a small thing like 50meg file download. Thats what Ive noticed anyway.

About Blood Mage spec
Spoiler:
You need to be a mage yourself so when it comes time to enter the fade, you can choose to go in yourself. Anyone else you send in can't unlock it. Talk to the demon at the end and give the curious answers until you can choose the give me blood magic one. And there you go!

You can't unlock it any other way.

last edited by DM at 14:14:00 09/Nov/09

I run around with Alister, Morrigan and Shale (The stone golem), man Shale is a f***ing tank and an awesome fighter but sounds like an effeminant Ricky Gervais (which is sort of redundant due to the fact Gervais is effeminant sounding anyway).

Oh and I bought the additional points and bought the warden's keep addon, so f***ing worth it. Literally this game has taken over my life.

Mephz - I've noticed it too, when you start cranking up to the 8-9 hour sessions right at the end is starts to load like a slug. Bastards! I need my ten hour DA:O sessions dammit! FYI I just clocked in at 26 hours total playtime, not including loading up previous saves. God. Last time this happened to me it was with Mass Effect =|

ive almost played for 14 hrs. ive done soldiers peak and now onto shale. i got the power of blood skills from drinking a potion at soldiers peak

I found Shale pretty boring to use though, I like the character, but he just has no real options for gear and f*** all skills/abilities, makes him pretty boring to use once you get over the novelty.

Forgot to cash in my code to get the DLC for the rock dude.. time to go grab him

I found Shale pretty boring to use though, I like the character, but he just has no real options for gear and f*** all skills/abilities, makes him pretty boring to use once you get over the novelty.

im loving him. hes a s***load better at tanking than alastair.


also do characters that youre not using gain xp as well?

last edited by ravn0s at 22:47:37 09/Nov/09

I'm about to buy the game from Steam. I'm gonna grab the Deluxe Edition since it's not that much more plus with the Aussie dollar being nice atm it's f***ing cheap as s***.

Wish me luck!

I've switched the combat down to Easy now, its just getting too frustrating and annoying and killing my enjoyment of the game. I'm sick of wrestling with the horrible pathfinding that makes my characters jitter around on the edge of a fight trying to find a way to the mob they want to hit, but instead end up sitting there doing nothing. Sick of the crappy AI that seems to spontaneously decide not to follow the tactics I've set up for it to follow. Sick of the insanely OP mages that just fireball and chain lightning my group and kill me in 2 seconds.

I just want to go back to actually enjoying the game instead of having to quicksave after every fight and take five times longer than normal to play my way through a dungeon because I have to run in, grab a few people's attention, run back out and around a corner and wait for them to come out, kill them, rinse, repeat.

Also, the inventory is becoming another source of frustration and annoyance, no stash or bank or somewhere to keep items you don't want to lug around with you is f***ing gay. I end up with half my inventory space taken up with armour I'm keeping for other characters or keeping for later and stuff to make poisons/traps/other s***.

last edited by Khel at 00:42:01 10/Nov/09

I finally figured out what they mean on the loading page tips by "try different combinations of spells". Putting down a Glyph of Repulsion, over the top of a Glyph of Paralysis makes the later, explode doing an AoE paralyze to everyone nearby. You get stunned mabye 3 seconds while they can last up to around 8. Cool s***. Also Improved Drain is when you have cast Vulnerability Hex on the target. It makes Drain Mana and Life spells 2x as strong.

Only found this out because I leveled a spirit healer mage (yes, ANOTHER character) and was trying to protect against a large group of mobs. No real dps on the healer but that will come after I have every heal/buff possible in the creation section.

Also anyone know if you get to go to different areas or is it the 1 map screen for the entire game? I'm guessing if/when expansions come they will open those areas up like Antevia and Orles or whatever they are called

last edited by DM at 02:38:37 10/Nov/09

Stop spoiling the game you f***ing stupid c***s!!

LOL, just joking. Can't wait to start playing this. Sounds awesome plus some of the gameplay trailers I've been checking out the visuals look lush as f***. Be a nice change from WoW.

Also anyone know if you get to go to different areas or is it the 1 map screen for the entire game? I'm guessing if/when expansions come they will open those areas up like Antevia and Orles or whatever they are called

Pretty sure they're for future games. I remember seeing an interview/dev diary thing with the guys working on it and they showed a map of the whole world, and Feralden, where Origins is set, is such a tiny part of it. And they were saying that they intend to turn Dragon Age into an ongoing franchise and thats why they've built this massive world, so future games can take advantage of it (I'm paraphrasing, but it was along those lines).

Also, the inventory is becoming another source of frustration and annoyance, no stash or bank or somewhere to keep items you don't want to lug around with you is f***ing gay. I end up with half my inventory space taken up with armour I'm keeping for other characters or keeping for later and stuff to make poisons/traps/other s***.

if you got the deluxe edition get the downloadable content called soldiers peak. read more in the spoiler tags below:

Spoiler:
it gives you a base you can work from with a chest you can store stuff in :)

what taggs said. does anyone else have the starfang sword? damn it looks sexy. i cant use it yet though since you need high strength :(

after creating a human sword and shield warrior i got over his lack of awesome and created a dwarf warrior 2 handed swords.. and he f***ing rocks me...

my rogue sucks. im thinking about starting over again as a mage.

Duelist rogue..massive dps + cool glowly weapons ( http://dump.justwipeit.com/Screenshots/Tim_244.jpg ). Basically playing him like a rogue in wow. i have everyone in the party to assist me. Thought for some reason alistair refuses to assist me and just fkn stands there until i jiggled the cable and told him to assist my archer (who assists me) and now he works good. stupid.

I ended up banking shale because i just got alistair his full dragon set and i need to pump his str so he can use it :(



last edited by CSIRAC at 11:43:44 10/Nov/09

I ditched Alistair, I was pissing him off anyway.

I got that 2 handed Quinari dude, and the Dog. The Dog is good at the start but I don't think he scales well, so I'm going to ditch him for a Rouge, as I cant open any locked chests :(

So whats the deal with the spec skills? who trains you in them. I have a rogue atm but no idea how to become an assassin etc

yer im not duelist yet csirac. i need to find the person that will train me

The Dog is good at the start but I don't think he scales well, so I'm going to ditch him for a Rouge, as I cant open any locked chests :(

get leiliana from the lothering bar.

last edited by ravn0s at 12:59:10 10/Nov/09

I've switched the combat down to Easy now, its just getting too frustrating and annoying and killing my enjoyment of the game. I'm sick of wrestling with the horrible pathfinding that makes my characters jitter around on the edge of a fight trying to find a way to the mob they want to hit, but instead end up sitting there doing nothing. Sick of the crappy AI that seems to spontaneously decide not to follow the tactics I've set up for it to follow. Sick of the insanely OP mages that just fireball and chain lightning my group and kill me in 2 seconds.

Isn't that part of the fun of this game - having challenging fights? I guess noobs might prefer WoW-style (aka easy difficulty) where you can mash 1 button to victory.

as I cant open any locked chests :(

My rogue started off pretty meh but the only reason I kept her was for the lewts.

So whats the deal with the spec skills? who trains you in them. I have a rogue atm but no idea how to become an assassin etc

At a guess the Assassin named Zasomething could teach you to assassin s***. Pretty sure you can get your characters to teach you what they know. My rogue is a duelist, I found a trainer in Spoiler:
the Pearl in Denerim.

So whats the deal with the spec skills? who trains you in them. I have a rogue atm but no idea how to become an assassin etc

Assassin
Spoiler:
Zevhran, the assassin sent to kill you, can be befriended and joins your group if you dont kill him when he fails. After this you have to get him to like you and eventually he will give you the option to train you in assassination. I had to get him around 65+ before he did though


Bard
Spoiler:
Same for above but this time it's with leleiana. However I think you can get her to teach you at a much lower level


Duelist
Spoiler:
In Denerim there is a whore house called The Pearl. You need to go here and you'll see a lady fighting off like 4 people. When they run away, talk to her and eventually she will agree to teach you if you beat her at a card game. It takes about 10 games until you realise she is cheating and then you beat her


Hunter
Spoiler:
Just buy the book from... I forget where actually. It's pretty god damn s*** though. Oh joy I get a wolf or bear beside me for 80% of my stamina. FUN!

Sick of the crappy AI that seems to spontaneously decide not to follow the tactics I've set up for it to follow. Sick of the insanely OP mages that just fireball and chain lightning my group and kill me in 2 seconds.

I can understand some of your frustration. Often I micro my rogue into position for extra backstabby goodness and then when I select another character she goes into AI tactics mode and runs off to attack another mob.

The only way I can figure to work it is to set everyone to hold (H button) so they don't go running off, which is kinda annoying because I just want my rogue to hold position, not the entire party.

The combat tactics seem quite intricate, and I set up a mage to pew pew but it doesn't seem to be working properly, so I might have to have more of a play with it. I'm probably missing something obvious.

I find through if all else fails, micro the s*** out of the battle and you can get much better results.

Yeah, 90% of the time its ok, its just last night when I was fighting those 3 drakes at once it was making me absolutely crazy. I don't mind challenging fights, but theres challenging, and then theres just outright frustrating where you're banging your head against a wall and fighting against the game mechanics to make them do what you want.

The main two things I've noticed my tactics failing to do are my mage just seems to sometimes stop healing, even though she has tactics set up to heal the tank and heal everyone else if they drop too low, and sometimes Alistair just stops trying to taunt things. I micro the fights to some degree, but I'd rather not have to be ordering them to do every little thing :(

Anyway, doesn't matter, I flicked it back to Easy for the three drakes, killed them, but then it was waaaaaaaaaaaay too easy and no fun so I put it back to normal. I guess I'll just put it back down to easy for any other fights in the future which are particularly annoying but mostly stay on normal.

Also, I didn't know that about Soldier's Peak, thats awesome. I already did the quest there but I didn't realise you Spoiler:
could use it as a base and store your stuff there

Kind of lame you have to pay more to get a stash. Ah well, I'll keep my $16 and put up with having to sell stuff more often.

I'm liking the game so far except the controls are pretty s***ty. They should have made it like WoW so you can run and still spin the camera around yourself. Also would prefer to have the left mouse as the action button not the right. Didn't see anywhere to change that over.

Also it took an eternity to get outta the first castle.

Gonna take a while to get used to combat. After playing WoW so long, Dragon Age combat feels extremely sluggish.

Gonna take a while to get used to combat. After playing WoW so long, Dragon Age combat feels extremely sluggish.

Welcome to the world of western rpgs.

Slowness is the pace, your meant to enjoy the lore, do a bit of role playing and stratagise your combat with each party member, once you get the hang of it fighting will be a breeze.

Thundercracker: are you looking for tactics that get your party members to assist your main hero? (or anyone else for that matter).

While tactics are a bit limiting in some areas (eg: theres no tactic to cast group heal when > 2 people are x health), the problems you guys are talking about sound like ones that can be fixed if you spend some time setting up your tactics properly.

Tactics occur from the top down of the list.
So it'll start going through it from the top, if you have.

Pure Example:

Nearest Enemy --> Cast Horror
Ally Being Attacked --> By Any Attack --> Force Field
XX
XX
Ally Health --> <25% Cast Group Heal

(XX's are other random s***)

Then, you'll be casting Horror and Force Field in a fight before Group Heal. (Once those spells are in cooldown/are unable to be cast - it'll move on)

Put your most important stuff at the top, I'm fairly certain it also explains this in your codex.
It should make your lives a lot less miserable.

As for the difficulty, I've only found one fight I've had to turn it back from Normal, and that was
Spoiler:
The Revenants in the forest
Before I was a high enough level to have even attempted it I realise now.

Otherwise, Mage combat pro-tip for extreme easymode:
Spoiler:
Cast Cone of Cold like a spastic in a candy store, two mages with it = keep 99% of a battle with all enemies frozen -- while one is in cooldown, if you want to waste talent points on it, get stonefist and you can instantly shatter mobs, even bosses..... or cast a group hex which turns hits into crits against them and shatter them
With High Magic, over 30+ The resist rate will be next to zero, even orange mobs get their asses frozen and handed to them


^ Instant win through the entire game for me so far, scales unlike most D&D games where that combo sucks towards the end.

Oh also - opposite elements affect mobs too. If you have mobs frozen and cast fire on them, they thaw out (Not melt unfortunately) and vice-versa, if they are on fire, ice or cold will extinguish.

last edited by Mephz at 16:04:51 10/Nov/09

If you have G15.. making it hold down tab is nice too

i use the cone of cold mephz and shatter enemies with backstabs.

also the tactic to have ai characters attack what youre attacking is:

enemy:targetted by player controlled character --> attack

Thundercracker: are you looking for tactics that get your party members to assist your main hero? (or anyone else for that matter).

Thats probably a good start, since my tank can hold aggro while the rogue goes to town. I'll have a bit more of a play around the tactics screen tonight to see what I can come up with.

Where do you go to get the extra stuff that comes with the Deluxe Edition?

Well, I dunno how people have -too- much trouble with Normal Difficulty.
I can two-man dragons with my mage + Alistair as tank.

Protip however: The Mabari Hound is better tank against dragons as they don't 'eat'/'chomp' them <-- Their overpower move.

Total Ownage Spoiler about Morrigan/Flemeth::

(spoiler +++)
Spoiler:
Having Alistair ride flemeth as a dragon for the win. The kill sequence anyway, I two manned + hound, the bitch on Normal, didnt have a fourth party member :)


last edited by Mephz at 16:56:57 10/Nov/09

Well, I dunno how people have -too- much trouble with Normal Difficulty.

Yeah, have you fought the three drakes at once, in the ruined temple where the ashes are? Thats what was f***ing me, cos they would just keep chain stunning me, then they'd all gang on someone and eat them and that person would be dead, then they'd stun again and eat someone else, it was ridiculous :(

And yeah, I know how the tactics work, I got my most important stuff at the top, like for my mage for example my first one is heal Alistair if hes below 50% health, and the second one is heal any ally that is below 25% health, but sometimes it still just ignores those tactics completely and lets people die, even when heal isn't on cooldown and my mage has plenty of mana. From looking at the forums it seems its an issue, sometimes the AI just spontaneously stops following tactics, or even stops attacking completely and sits there doing nothing.

Where do you go to get the extra stuff that comes with the Deluxe Edition?

If you got it from Steam, you can view your cd keys, and you'll have 2 or 3 different keys. Once you're in the game, you go to the downloadable content option off the main menu that lets you buy DLC, and there will be a "redeem code" option, and you put the cd keys in there as the DLC codes and it'll get you the DLC for free. I had 3 cd keys on mine (it was the deluxe one), one of them was the actual cd key and 2 of them were codes I could redeem for dlc, so just try all the keys and see which ones work.

Awesome, thanx Khel.

I found two different keys but weren't sure if they were the actual codes you chuck in.

Aha that triple drake was f***ed coz the ahses was the first place i went.. so i tried for about 30 mins to do it without a healer, managed to kill one but then it all came tumbling down...good times. they really should have made the healer more obvious. Spoiler:
Its possible that people might not of gone to the mage tower until much much later. that would have been lame.

Yeah, I don't have the healer yet, I just spent a point and gave morrigan the heal spell and she multitasks as a healer and then throws fireballs and s*** when theres a need. Not ideal, but better than nothing at all.

Nah Khel, I haven't done the ashes yet, I'm doing that now (I have done everywhere except haven and mountain atm - and clearly will be returning to Denerim since half the town was greyed out/its a major part of the story).

Like I said though, Level 14 mage and I can two man a dragon (Hound was left dead for 3/4 of the battle :P), so not thinking too much else should be a probem.
If you're being chained to death, easiest thing to do, if surrounded ,is cone of cold or Shield slam etc. a hole for you to run through then separate your party up.
That way if its an aoe stun at least you can have a mage heal the hell out of anybody being chained until those mobs run out of mana/stamina. (which they do, cause I had the dragon I killed run out of stamina since DPS was so slow with two party members XD)

I've dropped to only taking 3 party members around now, and only because I like the three of them.
If I was to do it again, I reckon I'd try and make an arcane mage tank + Morrigan and duo the whole game :)

About Mage tower:
Spoiler:
Mage tower is probably best to hit up first if I was going to remake a character due to getting all the permanent +to stats..... I also killed that whiney bitch ass healer :)


last edited by Mephz at 17:51:25 10/Nov/09

The 3 drake fight wasnt too hard - I finished it on Hard difficulty.
My group is 2 warriors, mage & rogue.

My main is a warrior dwarf with sword & shield.

I used the assassin rogue to backstab the drakes, and second tank smashing drakes on side, with mage just healing and throwing in some staff attacks.

Maybe if your getting chain stunned then you need to increase your physical resistance, I got stunned a few times, but the heals from my mage kept me up, in the mean time when he came back from his stun he would drink a pot. he survived the fight and the second tank & rogue took the drakes down in the mean time.

I have played the whole game on hard, i've had a few difficult fights where it took me a few goes, but overall I would never change the difficulty no matter how hard it got. I have always found a strategy to beat every fight, you just have to think about it.

When I fought the guardian of the ashes, his armor was crazy, my rogue was back stabbing him for 1 damage, but there were certain spell buffs you can give your teammates which increased the rogues damage to decent amounts, and that was the difference in the battle.

Yeah I dunno khel, I just did all the drakes including the 3 at once fight.
Cone of cold --> Chain Lightning --> Lightning Shock --> GG dead drakes :)

Still 3 Manning it, Normal difficulty. (2 mages, 1 tank).

Mage/Blood Mage Specialisation (Second Acquisition possibility)
Spoiler:
At Haven, the ashes quest, not quite finished it but would seem this is the second place to obtain it.


last edited by Mephz at 19:42:03 10/Nov/09

I would think that a blood mage/arcane mage spec would be good because it allows you to wear the massive armor. Not only will you look awesome but you have much higher def

I find that having a Mage is essential. I use mind f*** a lot to stun, I gave her a point in heal and I use cone of cold. I have my tactics set up so that anyone paralyzed get a skill used against them that crits. Usually my cone of cold results in 1 or 2 shatters.

I found that Sten would stop doing stuff when I played around with his tactics. My first tactic was if Hero is <25% health then use Taunt.

It worked, except when the Hero was unconscious, he would just stand around. :/
So I got rid of it.

Still 3 Manning it, Normal difficulty.

Why would you 3 man it (make it more difficult) then drop the difficulty, seems counter productive.
Also you might miss some interplay between characters, hell take a guy thats attitude is contrary to your main 3 and do s*** just to piss them off.

I completed the redcliffe abomination quest, saved mum and kid, yet my journal says the mum sacrificed her life, i hope that doesnt indicate anything else being f***ed up.

Yeah, I guess I don't really micro-manage stuff very much, I usually just control my main character for the whole fight and let Alistair and Sten and Morrigan get controlled by tactics (except when I want morrigan to throw a fireball or something else offensive, I swap to her and do those manually).

Spose if I micro'd it more it'd be easier, and I've tried that a few times, but it just slows everything down so much and I get bored having to f*** around with all my guys so much, I'm too impatient :P

Why would you 3 man it (make it more difficult) then drop the difficulty, seems counter productive.

Mainly because I don't like any of the others.

Morrigan/My Mage/Alistair.

Is my current setup.
It's not counter productive at all.

If I play it through again I'll attempt to duo it on Normal.
It's a different kind of 'difficult' as opposed to just ramping up enemies defenses/how hard they hit you.

For example, In baldur's gate series you could solo it, it was quite difficult to bein with, but by the end, because of the exp increase since it wasn't shared, you became essentially an indestructible god, which was cool :)

As for my last spoiler about Andastre specialisation:
Spoiler:
It's Reaver specialisation as a reward


last edited by Mephz at 20:38:26 10/Nov/09

Yes that or
Spoiler:
if you leave the ashes alone and just take them, the erl gives you the champion spec instead. Not amazing but handy once you get the last ability

Yeah, have you fought the three drakes at once, in the ruined temple where the ashes are?

Haha that fight was weird for me. I went straight for the mage before I realised how many mobs were actually in the area and my group dropped pretty quick. At the end Alister was the only one left standing with 2 drakes and 2 reavers left, he got knocked into a corner where they could only get to me 1 at a time and I whittled them down.

As for Flemeth
Spoiler:
My rogue tanked Flemeth because Shale bugged out on me and refused to fight, got to see my own character slay the beast which was cool. The fire resist armour Wade makes you + Wynne stocked with mana pots meant that Shale ended up not being needed.


I'm beginning to wonder if the load times I'm getting has something to do with saves since I do a manual save instead of an quick save each time. I'm only playing for less than an hour sometimes by the time I get large load times.

It's a different kind of 'difficult' as opposed to just ramping up enemies defenses/how hard they hit you.

That isnt the only thing that makes it more difficult, i noticed you are a cone of cold proponent? Normal difficulty means no friendly fire right, seems like thats a huge advantage when using spells like coc, and you say to use it when surrounded, well if your whole team is bunched up youre just as likely to screw your own team over as the enemy.

Nah, theres friendly fire on normal, its just you only take half damage from friendly fire.

Normal means you have FF but it only does 1/2 damage that it does to the enemy. Hard is full damage and less healing.

EDIT - damn you khel

Normal difficulty has friendly fire damage, and cone of cold also freezes your own party.
(Hard has it so friendly fire does increased damage to your own party members, whats the point when I don't friendly fire anyway).
I have never done that once.
The most form of friendly fire I get from my mages is occasionally tempest, and that was when I had it set with tactics to use it on ranged attackers at range, I then disabled it because the AOE is so large it would often cast it and cause damage to my tank on the outer edge.
- Otherwise, its not really difficult to have tank taunt, then move mage to a flank and have cone spell effects hit as many mobs as possible but not your own party.

I play in a pseudo-turn based, in that I micro managed all party members and don't really use the tactics AI all that much.

I'm not really sure why you're trying to tell me how I should/shouldn't play the game.

last edited by Mephz at 21:14:50 10/Nov/09

I like cone of cold. Get everyone to step away, then BAM cone of cold into the enemy and everyone smashes them, then follow up with a mass stun and BAM again. I've also got mass sleep followed by horror.

I don't think I even have cone of cold on Morrigan, my morrigan is all kind of f***ed up now cos I spent points all over the place, so shes not really particularly good at any one thing. Really wish there was some kind of once-off respec cos I screwed up my rogue a bit at the start too and spent points in wasted places.

After reading this though, cone of cold looks like it'll be my next purchase, I've been using that winter's bite spell to freeze people and shatter them but its single target only.

Mass sleep + horror = goodness.

My rogue is kicking arse now, went assassin then duelist.

Morrigan for me picked up spirit healer, alister picked up champion. Still going hard with Shale, but I'm thinking about changing to the dwarf, who I gave Reaver to.

Meh, seems like a good setup, just need to find more hours in the day to play the f***ing game >=D.

I'm stuck trying to get across the bridge to get to the urn, tried for about 5 minutes before I gave up - my head hurts :(

Nah, theres friendly fire on normal,

Well i knew ff was less damaging, didnt someone say earlier in the thread he could stun half his team, but they became unstunned in half the time of the enemy.
I use cone a bit, but the annoying thing is when the enemy just charge straight at you and walk past the cone effect, especially annoying when you put all your guys in a doorway and they just walk straight through your line and surround you, leaving your coc firing blanks into the middle of nowhere.
I held off getting the blizzard spell as i was a bit wary of the ff effect and having the enemy just walk straight past it, but i think it might be my next spell as pairing it with earthquake seems like it could be pretty deadly, the blizz slows the down and quake knocks em over so they cant leave the area, maybe chuck a walking bomb into one of the pricks as well. Got the idea from a post in another forum where he suggested quake+grease+fire, i dont have grease traps or fire though atm.

I'm not really sure why you're trying to tell me how I should/shouldn't play the game.

What is qgl for if not to tell people how they are doing it wrong.

Is anyone using the traps and poisons, seems like its a fairly expensive path to take, i was going to spec my rogue to do something like that, but every time i come to a vendor it seems like id spend half my money on getting ingredients, and theres never any ingredients or flasks in chests. (except for the odd root in the forrest)

after playing rogue and then moving to mage i would say that the game is SO much easier as a mage. boringly easy.

Trauma - How so mate? The street release *was* broken and now people can sell it? How is that a misleading thread title?

I read it as the retail version was broken out of the box, once I read it it was clear what you meant. Just a matter of perception.

The Cone of Cold doesn't work exactly as you think.

If you pause the game set up your cone of cold it will only hit the targets that are highlighted, if a target walks into the cone right afterwards they wont be touched by it.

It looks like it does a once of target check and the animation lasts longer.

If you pause the game set up your cone of cold it will only hit the targets that are highlighted, if a target walks into the cone right afterwards they wont be touched by it.

It looks like it does a once of target check and the animation lasts longer.

Absolutely 100% correct.
Highlight and pausing for micromanage is the way to avoid FF, its also the way to captivate the most enemies without your own party, zoom out and target beyond them so as to avoid the 'snap to target' effect with the cursor for greater accuracy.
Sleep + Horror is goo, I need to get the AOE version of it eventually.

Yeah, I've also noticed for spells with long casts (like chain lightning), if an enemy mage starts casting at me, and then I move out of line of sight, they will still continue to cast and the spell will come through the wall and hit me anyway. Seems they only need me in line of sight when they start the cast and they can still hit me, so I'm guessing thats the same for all spells, it determines the target when the cast starts.

Yeah, I've also noticed for spells with long casts (like chain lightning), if an enemy mage starts casting at me, and then I move out of line of sight, they will still continue to cast and the spell will come through the wall and hit me anyway. Seems they only need me in line of sight when they start the cast and they can still hit me, so I'm guessing thats the same for all spells, it determines the target when the cast starts.

Sounds like arcane missiles.

I've taken my new rogue on a slightly different path than most would. As soon as I could I picked up Momentum, which pretty much doubles attack speed, and plan on putting only the required dex and cunning to pick up some key abilities then pumping str. This allows me to wear awesome armor such as the massive Warden Commander set, which oddly has a 15% crit/backstab bonus on the chest. On top of that the set actually lowers stam usage of abilities so it kinda cancels out the penalty of momentum.

I rarely use abilities at all with the exception of Mark of Death on boss targets and Dirty Fighting. When your doing 30 - 35 backstab damage per hit every .5 secs, using abilities really isn't a big issue as it actually tends to lower your dps. Only mobs I have the slightest trouble with are shield carrying ones since you tend to not be able to backstab them. NP though as they die real fast when you Dirty Fighter them.

The Cone of Cold doesn't work exactly as you think.

If you pause the game set up your cone of cold it will only hit the targets that are highlighted, if a target walks into the cone right afterwards they wont be touched by it.

Sounds like it works exactly how i think it does, ive still had a few times where a team mate has moved a mm between the time ive taken it off pause and the time morrigan casts it, or because the enemy basically just swarms you you cant target them all.

The small inventory is really annoying too, only bought one backpack so far (didnt buy the one at the guy before the first huge battle) played risen which had an infinite inventory which was great as you only needed to bother screwing around with it if you needed money or whatever, in DAO i find myself in it every 2 minutes half way through a dungeon, always been a pet gripe about rpgs or any game with an inventory.
On a semi-related note is there any reason to keep chalices/bowls/pelts/gems/inventory lists other than to sell them, itd piss me off if i sold them all then got a fetch quest two minutes later.

last edited by Bah at 15:51:39 11/Nov/09

Hope theres no reason to keep them, because I've been selling them all too. I don't think they'd be part of a quest, cos usually the stuff you need to collect for fetch quests live in the quest items part of your inventory.

Yeah since getting momentum my dps has increased so much. 50 backstabs with mark of death is the s***tttttt. If i rebuilt my rogue i wouldnt of taken anything after momemtum in that line of skills and instead chuck more points in the duelist and assassin tree. Those talents look very cool~

edit: something has been annoying me lately with tactics. Ive set my healer to cast rejuv on herself when maan is <50%. She never does it but instead casts it on other party members. Its set to SELF wtf is it doing?!

edit2: oh right.. u cant cast on self. gotcha!

last edited by CSIRAC at 18:52:41 11/Nov/09

last edited by CSIRAC at 19:01:02 11/Nov/09

This one looks pretty good, I might have to pick it up later on.
All reports are though if you go into it like you do with D&D (i.e. Baldur's Gate, Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Mage) it doesn't work as well?
Anyone have tips for a good party lineup?

Was just in some dungeon, some c*** spirit is speaking elvish, then attacks me after i say i cant understand her.. so i reload, trudge all the way out of the dungeon, grab my elf, walk all the way come back... and same thing happens :/
If my character was an elf, would i have understood her?

maybe. I just killed her and took the Treasure.

I also looted some dudes unconscious body, then took him back to safety hahah.
It was a really nice thing to do, I was contemplating looting his dead body..

If my character was an elf, would i have understood her?

No, my main is an elf.

And the reason you can't understand that spirit is because its speaking an ancient dialect that was long forgotten/lost. (It was explained in the game I'm pretty sure).

The loading screens also mention how after a millennium of slavery and poverty that the elves lost a lot of their complex culture and language, could also be part of the reason.

Either way, it seems it was explained away and not a stupid oversight at least :)


I'm wondering just how long this game actually is, as I've been trying to do every quest I've found along the way, and I'm up to the Dark Roads in Orzrammar and its the last place (in terms of the treaties) I've to go.
Yet it says I'm at 26% completion - Assuming all the sidequests add up.
Wondering if it also counts things like specialisations acquirement etc. etc.

Sounds like you're exactly where Im at, mephz (in terms of overall story progress). Ive tried to explore as much as possible and do the quests but soemtimes.. cbf. I really doubt theres much more to do after you get these treaties signed..surely.

maybe. I just killed her and took the Treasure.

Well yeah she obviously got what was coming to her, stupid foreign bitch not learning our language.

And the reason you can't understand that spirit is because its speaking an ancient dialect

That's fair enough, it just seemed as though i might have an option to talk with her as there was a ghost before her speaking funny, seemingly as a hint to get someone who could understand that language before continuing.

Yet it says I'm at 26% completion

Maybe you need multiple playthroughs to get everything? I hear level caps out at 26 or so? (either by design or thats the max available xp in game?)

I've finished all the main recruiting missions except the dwarf area and it says i'm at 48%

I've finished all the main recruiting missions except the dwarf area and it says i'm at 48%

How on earth?

Do you have the Wardens Keep collectors addon? If so was it very long?
I only have the Shale/that village addon for standard edition.

I've got a few of those board & Mage etc. 'kil/find' type quests to finish up, but not -that- many.

Seems we have a very large gap in our percentages -
Do you only have one character?
What level is your char?

Wondering what I've missed, cause I cleared everything I could find before I moved onto new areas (and even revisited some).

Yeah I have the warden's keep stuff too. Finished both those DLC. My archer is fulled maxed out with all skills and is Lv 15. other people range from 13 to 15 as well. Done a few side quests and personal missions too

That's quite strange.
My Mage i level 16, far from having all the skills/spells (though granted I have not been purchasing the tomes etc. - an oversight as I was hording gold for a long time thinking it'd be more useful than it was).

Still, I've spoken to all party members to the point they can't give me any more info. Though I suppose the only person I'm in good favour with really is Morrigan - Even Alister is only neutral to me :)
So I am probably missing a few party members story related quests, assumin,g like morrigan, they all have one.

P.S. There's little point to having Morrigan full reputation if your main is a female, except, her character quest =]

The warden's keep definitely was not worth 6 euros ... I feel ripped off

I'm pretty sure the completion percentage also takes into account completing all the achievements, so yeah, probably need multiple playthroughs, I've still got ozrammar and the brellian forest to go as far as my treaties and stuff and it says I'm 35% of the way through. But then I've started other characters and got some achievements for doing the other origin stories and stuff too. I reckon it takes all that into account.

can't play cause no Internet :( f***ing a****** truck driver pulled all the lines down at the intersection near us lastnight

How do I get to Shale so I can get that rock dude?

I've just completed that Soldiers Keep place or whatever it's called and I can't see Shale anywhere on the main map? Do I have to go somewhere else to unlock it?

Also, I have my mage set to heal in the pre-set options but my guys seem to die while she stands around doing nothing. I had her set at default then changed to aggressive then cautious. And I can never get any armor for her either. Everything I find is is mail/plate looking and needs a heap of strength to use. ATM she's still in the clothes I found her in.

go to sulchers pass on the world map to start the quest rev. its a little gold icon like soldiers peak.

you should be able to buy leather armour for your mage.

And I can never get any armor for her either

Seems like you want Arcane Warrior spec for your mage. Lets you use your magic score instead of your Strength, so using massive armor is easy peasy

But if you put massive armour on your mage, wont it give him/her a huge fatigue penalty and make spells cost heaps more? I would have thought thats the last thing you'd want to do to a mage, my mage is always running out of mana as it is.

Depends on the armour set i guess, when you have a full set sometimes the fatigue penalty drops to a negligable mount. (depending on the set bonus)

I think i have a bugged quest, the hunter guy wanted a wolf pelt, i had plenty in my inventory (f*** i could have given him a werewolf pelt, he probably would have gotten anal from his gf if he showed her that), but when i go to speak to him he whinges at me and says he will do it himself, yet the quest is still marked as incomplete.. at least it didnt happen to a large quest.

Also, how do I give gifts to other characters? The gift thing is always grayed out.

I wanna f*** Morrigan...she's a feisty one!

Change to their portrait in the inventory.

rev the item has to have "Gift" in the item details. to give it to someone, open up the inventory and scroll to that character. right click the item then choose gift.

Ah, ok.

So pretty much the inventory is yours and you just "share" out the stuff between team mates? Nice. Morrigan will be mine. Oh, yes, she'll be mine.

I'm learning quickly that Shale makes an incredible tank. 300 hp after 1 level up (lv 11), multiple taunts and AoE taunts, and people want to attack him just from being around him. With my gear that reduces hostility as much as possible, i never pull agro from backstabbing things.

That and with wynne fully decked out in tactics she never goes OOM and Have yet to see Shale drop below 50% hp in any fight. Making 250 lesser mana pots was well worth the 6g or so it cost to make them.

So pretty much the inventory is yours and you just "share" out the stuff between team mates? Nice. Morrigan will be mine. Oh, yes, she'll be mine.

hopefully youve got a male character. she doesnt go both ways :(

Thats what Lileiana is for!

hopefully youve got a male character. she doesnt go both ways :(

f*** sake! I just wasted some gifts on her.

>8-(

Ok Alastair. You better put out or else!

I've decided the auto quest turn in annoys me. Like if you've completed multiple quests for the Blackstone Irregulars or off the Chanter's Board, when you talk to the guy to turn it in they just all complete at once and you get your reward. Which is really annoying if one of the quests is, for instance, "Give 20 health potions to the Blackstone irregulars". I rock up to turn in a different quest and it looks at my inventory and goes, oh, he has 20 health potions, he must want to turn in the 20 health potion quest too, and BAM there goes all my health potions.

Got into my next fight and went to use a potion and I only had 1 left instead of 21. Good times.

Edit: Also, I feel your pain rev, I spent way too much time and effort trying to get in Morrigan's pants as a chick, to the point where Alistair hated me. Now I can't get Morrigan, and I can't get Alistair's approval back up high enough for him to like me :(

Who would have thought Morrigan would be straight, honestly, she looks like she'd totally be up for anything.

last edited by Khel at 17:33:57 12/Nov/09

Spoiler:
Has anyone run into the problem of wynn trying to melee the dragon taht u summon on the mountain top. Ive played through a lot of the game now and shes never ever tried to fkn attack a mob before (its set to passive). It's really starting to s*** me.

edit: ended up having to put it on free walk and half microing her myself. retarded :/

did anyone else have this problem?


last edited by CSIRAC at 18:06:19 12/Nov/09

last edited by CSIRAC at 18:20:54 12/Nov/09

wait for leiliana rev. shes much better and goes both ways

last edited by ravn0s at 20:11:45 12/Nov/09

But if you put massive armour on your mage, wont it give him/her a huge fatigue penalty and make spells cost heaps more? I would have thought thats the last thing you'd want to do to a mage, my mage is always running out of mana as it is.

My Main (Mage) Is wearing drakeskin armour from Wade by using Arcane Warrior (Since I missed out on blood mage spec :/).
The fatigue penalty towards mana is negligible really - It's considered medium armour, and Morrigan in cloth tends to go through much more mana.
Heal spells chew through your mana pool.
But then, dump spellbloom on yourself + Rejuv on party members helps, as well as spamming lesser pots :)

But that's with about 40 in willpower and 43 or so in magic to counter it.

Just about finished it, will probably re-roll another mage and try Hard difficulty with an Arcane/Blood Mage, and Morrigan only.
Playing as two power tripping hungry mages who'll do anything for power =]

Will probably be too hard but worth a go =]

last edited by Mephz at 20:22:47 12/Nov/09

You should save before you hand out any gifts. I gave a pair of shoes to the elf because he went on about shoes, got a s***ty +1 appreciation from him and then a little latter the bard chick told me a story about how she loves shoes as well and I'm pretty sure I should have given that pair to her. It's kinda sucky that you can't really build appreciation up without gifts after a point and gifts seem to be a finite resource.

It even tells you in the loading screen tips that if a party member is reluctant to take a gift it's probably better suited to someone else and yet they don't have any backsies in place.

yer i found an andraste flower in redcliffe and i gave it to leiliana because i remembered her telling me her mother used to smell like them. i ended up getting +13 appreciation for it.

Each person you can group with, as far as I know, has a "storyline beginning item" which is exactly what it sounds like. That flower starts her quest which will eventually lead to her liking you more and you getting items.

The ones i've found so far...

Alistair
Spoiler:
In redcliff castle in the erls study. It's in a desk and is a locket


Zevhran
Spoiler:
In Haven in 1 of the buildings there are a pair of antivan leather boots


Lileiana
Spoiler:
A flower found in the elf forest. Forget its name but its before you 1st run into the werewolves


Morrigan
Spoiler:
While doing the mage tower quest, if you loot the 1st enchanter's room there is a black grimore in there


Also worth noting that Morri's quest leadas you to a pretty epic fight. Good stuff

last edited by DM at 23:09:29 12/Nov/09

i started her quest before then. i think you only have to get them to a certain level of appreciation to start their quests.

I dunno rav. I had lil at 90% before I gave her the flower and her quest never started.

hmm dunno then. i got her quest when i was travelling from soldiers peak to sulchers pass to get shale before heading to redcliffe. got attacked by assassins hired by leiliana's mentor to kill her.

Uh oh... Don't tell me you can only do 1 personal quest per game... If so I guess that means I can't bed her. I did morri's quest before I got attacked by assassins

Yeah, I had this problem just last night, couldn't figure out how to start leliana's quest and I had her at 100 approval and still nothing. Turns out, you actually need to have her in your party to start her quest because it starts as a random encounter with some assassins. As soon as I left camp and added her to my party (I don't normally take her) and then went to a new location, I got interupted with a random encounter with some assassins and beating them started leliana's personal quest.

Also, f*** I hate Zevran, does he even have a personal quest? I don't want to have to add him to my party and do a quest for him, he annoys the s*** out of me. Hes like some perverted cross between a bad porno actor and a phillipino lady boy.

Uh oh... Don't tell me you can only do 1 personal quest per game

Nah, you can do more than one, I've already done Morrigan's, Sten's and Leliana's.

last edited by Khel at 01:12:09 13/Nov/09

Yeah zevran has a personal quest but you dont have to have him in the party to have it start. You do need to be in his good books and maybe start it off with some conversations. Not exactly sure, i kind of stumbled into it.

Figured out what I did wrong. I didn't talk to her at a certain time or must of gave a wrong answer and it led me into friendship territory. Had to break up with her, get her affection back up and ask about her being a spy and all is now well. Apparantly she sings for you too but i've not come to that yet. Only problem my rogue is having are the god damn mages that sometimes pop up. If i get CoC'ed or hexed with that "all hits are misses, and crits are normal hits" spell i'm pretty much dead/useless to the group. Had to reload a fair bit.

Given up trying to bang leliana. I dont know how it happened. Max approval + kissed her + she sung for me. The only thing i didnt do was talk to her about spies. But by the time i read up on it the dialogue wasnt available anymore. So i figured i would give pissing her off a go. So went from max to down 2 bars, and only then did the spies dialogue come back. So i did her personal quest and she wont bang me :( think its game over.

And through trial and error i thought pissing off morrigan (who ive slept with before) would allow me to sleep with leliana.. but i was wrong, so now i got 2 female prudes in my camp. Least i have zevran ...

http://social.bioware.com/project/463/#details
Puts a storage chest in your camp, wish id installed it ages ago, now i can just dump everything in there.

Awesome :D

heres a whole list of what gifts to give to each character

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1019979

After I broke up with Lil she only took a -23 hit. Now i'm back to maximum and have banged her. Now if I can just work out how to get her to sing... mabye it happens as you progress in the story.

is there a lits of where/how to get other party members from?

wouldnt mind getting wynne but dont know where/how to recruit her.

mages tower, u ask her to go with you to kill all the abominations and she joins u after the quest is done.

is there any particular order i should recruit in... or could i go to the mages tower straight off the bat?

aka, will it scale the enemys depending on my level or should i take it in steps.

Yeah enemies scale pretty well in this game. I'll give a small list of who to recruit where. Only will list people you don't obviously get in the first couple of hours.

Zevhran
Spoiler:
He is sent to kill you as you go to collect people for your army. It's a random battle when she shows up but afterward if you talk to him instead of killing him, you can group with him. This also gives lil a +2 or 3 bonus.


Wynne
Spoiler:
She is the main healer of the game and is found in the mage tower. Go to the dock near the lake and talk to the guard who will ferry you across into the tower. He may resist so if you intimidate/coerse/have shale in your group, he will let you through. Be nice to her and tell her you will join with her or you may end up fighting her and having to kill her


Oghren
Spoiler:
He is a berserker and is found talking to an NPC in Diamond quater in the dwarf town. After that if you go back into the tavern in the main area, he can be spoken to. Offer to help him find Branka and if you choose to help... I forget his name but not the one called Bhalen, he joins you when you go toward the Deep Roads. He was hitting mobs around 45 - 70 per hit so he is quite the strong bugger


As for me as soon as i'm able I go get shale, then get wynne, then do warden's keep. I hate getting wynne because the tower is such a bastard to do but oh well whatta you gonna do.

last edited by DM at 13:57:46 13/Nov/09

You can also get Spoiler:
Loghain to join your party towards the end, but if you do, Alistair leaves in disgust

Great complete end-game spoiler not marked as such there bro

You can also get Spoiler:
Neo dies at the end of the matrix trilogy


last edited by Teh at 16:02:00 13/Nov/09

So I booted my hunter/Duelist back up since my rogue was getting rocked hard. I found out something when allocating stats.

If you add the 3 points to a stat, hit reset, and then click the lower stat arrow you can TAKE AWAY stats and add them to your pool. I'd assume if you do it again and add 6 points, you can then take away 6 points. I guess this is a bug but right now it seems if you messed up your stats, don't worry and use this.

Also it seems I really underestimated the power of 2 rangers in a group. Me and lil both have bears/wolves/spiders out and hot damn do they do some damage. They vanish when you change areas so better to use them in really open areas you'll be in for awhile. they hit around 25 - 35 each hit, and theres 2 of them. good extra dps. 6 man group ftw

Great complete end-game spoiler not marked as such there bro

What, you want different ranks of spoiler now? If you don't want it spoiled, then maybe don't read the spoiler?

Teh that is incorrect. He becomes part of the system.

It'd be best if the spoiler was noted to be AT THE END OF THE GAME when posted IN REPLY TO TALKS ABOUT VERY EARLY GAME RECRUITS, dick.

A spoiler is a spoiler, hover over it at your own risk.

People have been excellent with their spoiler use in this thread, much more then any other game related thread I think.

So quit your whinging and assume that if you read a big thread about this game that has people dropping spoilers left right and center then there is a chance you could read something u don't want to.

Right at the start of the game
Spoiler:
you assemble an army using age old grey warden treaties demanding the dalish elves, dwarves and circle of the magi assist in defending against a blight. you soon learn that you must sacrifice the life of a grey warden to slay the archdemon, and must choose who to sacrifice before slaying it at the top of a tower, causing the darkspawn to retreat, ending another blight and the game. there are two more archdemons left alive.


last edited by Hashy at 21:22:38 13/Nov/09

OK if it gets this big a f***ing QGL thread I guess I'll buy the thing.

Well played sirs.

OK if it gets this big a f***ing QGL thread I guess I'll buy the thing.
Well played sirs.

Got me too Hoggy. Damn the hype!

OK if it gets this big a f***ing QGL thread I guess I'll buy the thing.
Well played sirs.

Very much this.

Anyone up to the last bit and the grunt darkspawns get 1 shot by you and your party members? Dunno if its intentional or some bug. Basically anything thats in white text gets 1 shot and anything in yellow text takes the usual amount of time to kill. Also Shrieks for some reason (even tho they're in white text) take the normal amount of time to kill as well.

edit: its intentional

last edited by CSIRAC at 18:36:39 14/Nov/09

yeah morrigan is my bitch.

CSIRAC yeah its definitely intentional, mine was the same.

Out of curiosity, I finished the game at 45% completed I believe, only ever had the 1 character; Got the 75% side quests completed achievement.
(Achievements would also appear to be worth 1% each).

The game was epic, like an interactive movie or one of those 'choose the destiny' books. Eagerly awaiting expansions!
Would be even more epic if, the expansions continue your character and looks at what your final choices were from origins and keeps going from there.

(Major Ending/s Spoilers)
Spoiler:
For example, whether you chose to let Morrigan have a child, or whether you let Alistair die, who you let be king etc etc.

Just did the free pre-order bonus DLC mission for the golem Shale.

Not bad at all really.

BTW - keep Shale well away from any birds (as in chickens)!

Loving this game. Sometimes you get hammered - eg Back Alley I mean there must have been 30 odd bad guys (and impossible to retreat).

30 vs 4 yeah right I like those odds!

The game was epic, like an interactive movie or one of those 'choose the destiny' books. Eagerly awaiting expansions! Would be even more epic if, the expansions continue your character and looks at what your final choices were from origins and keeps going from there.

I don't have much hope for the future DLC since it seems to imply that you can do DLC content before the climactic events at the end but not after so you'd have to go to a previous save or some s***. Which seems to be the case for Soldiers Peak.

Mephz:

Spoiler:
something tells me you kind of get railroaded into the child thing. Next play through ill try to not have a child and see what happens


I finished the game on first play through with 48% done, but i didnt get the 75% side quests ach though.

Is there any way to play your character after you finish playing? Besides loading up a old save obviously.

Just started playing yesterday based mostly on the length of this thread. It takes a few hours to get going but I'm definitely hooked now!

Back Alley I mean there must have been 30 odd bad guys

Yeah i thought there were no consequences for stealing, then after a few failed stealing attempts in denerim I got a random encounter while travelling between areas, the city guard pulls me up and calls me out for stealing then a huge mob of them attacked me.

Aha that never occurred to me as being caused by my random pick pocketing.

Well they did say something like "So youre the warden thats been pilfering, how far the wardens have fallen"

Has anyone found the dlc addons to have disproportionately good loot, just did the stone golemn quest and it dropped a pretty good helmet and ring, wish i had done the quest ages ago when it was first available.

I saved prior to the last dialogue and fight in the mage tower, then played it a few times. Everytime I got a different ending based on text and or how the fight went.

BTW is it possible to get all the romances on a single character ? ... tho I might have to pay someone to do the "guy" romance.

Anyways for me, this is the best RPG I have played ie. better then Planescape and Mass Effect. It has a good mix of story and action the person that said it is like an interactive movie is spot on. In most of bioware's games I end up focusing on stats or builds. This time its all about the story.

Yeah the camp is a total slutfest, but like you said you will be limited once you hit alistair (if you're a guy) or morrigan (if you're a girl)

Best ways to handle DLC is just to add new continents to the game, or islands IMO. There are so many places mentioned in the game that you never go or see

but they might want to keep other lands for potential sequels.

It's a pretty safe bet that there will be a sequel, and its a good bet itll be in one of the many countries that is mentioned throughout the game.

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/8/80/ThedasMap.jpg

Man, Ferelden is like one of the tiniest places on that map, and the scope of this game is already huge. Can't imagine how huge a sequel is going to be.

sounds like a massive cash cow.

And thats just one continent too? I get the impression theres other continents cos don't the Qunari come from a different place?

Might one day rival warcraft in hugeness (lore wise). Really depends if bioware puts the effort in.

It's a pretty safe bet that there will be a sequel

theyre already working on it. a bioware dude let it slip on some site.

I get the impression theres other continents cos don't the Qunari come from a different place?

i think they are near antiva. i remember reading the codex about antiva and how the qunari dont wont to mess with them.

I think it's a good game, I'm enjoying the characters and the story/exploration however after about 25 hours or so I'm finding the combat quite dull. There are some combat sequences which are exciting, but for the most part it's just rinse and repeat type sutff.

I have the difficulty on normal and I die every now and then, I don't want to turn it up though as I will probably die too often, and I don't think I would enjoy the combat more simply because it's harder.

Alistar is the bomb, I got the sock conversation piece last night :)

I'm the same dude. The combat is too boring. There's just something about it that's really not exciting and I don't think I have the willpower to sit thru the full game.

I'm the same dude. The combat is too boring. There's just something about it that's really not exciting and I don't think I have the willpower to sit thru the full game.

i was loving the game... really into it.. slowly started finding combat boring... then got ahold of AC2.. put that in.. spent 2 hours wishing the game was DA:0.. but then AC2 got good and cant put it down... DA:0 gets a little break till i finish AC2

After playing Mass Effect, and seeing the combat in Mass Effect 2 I think I prefer the combat style in that game. It's fast paced, but still tactical, and it's easier to get through just quick combat sequences.

There is so much meaningless combat in DA:O.

First playthrough was with a main rogue with archer and tank + healer, on normal. Thought my team was pretty good! Now im playing it as a caster stack (3 casters 1 tank) on nightmare and its easier than normal with my first party... im just blowing s*** up. Its so clear to me now how underpowered stamina based classes are in this game :(

I also think the ME combat style is the best. Flows much better, but I'm going to take a leap and say a lot of the fun is coz you got to use the force and shoot ppl with guns :P

I'm the same dude. The combat is too boring.

how the f*** do you play wow then?

Easily. WoW is a million times faster than this.

Like someone said earlier, this is more story orientated or something which explains why the gameplay is always getting interrupted by those cutscene things. I just like the faster gameplay WoW offers.

Yeah I'm playing as a mage now and they are retardedly overpowered. I keep the Bard chick in the group for lock picking and trap disarming since it's a fair chunk of xp but Morri throws in a few curses and then I drop a nuclear bomb and everyone dies. I think it's the way to go for a second run through since it cuts the combat time down dramatically. I don't even need a tank half the time.

If you have the problem of the dumbs*** healer following you around when you are fighting a dragon or boss, set her to Ranged in the tactics screen. I had her on cautious which was fine until we would get to a boss and then she'd keep running up to me, which as a rogue meant she would run into aoe/knock back range and kept getting killed.

Also with drops, they scale to what level you are doing the content, with the character quest item drops being the exception. When I got Shale on my rogue, the crystals in the area that you loot were all high quality, I did it early on this time and the crystals were all s***.

I haven't played this game but from your comment rev it seems like you're playing chess. WoW gameplay is slow as donkeys*** hardening, so if dragon age is slower than that... damn.

Having fun, not sure how many hours I'm down at the minute, finished the starter s*** and I'm at the last level of the werewolf dungeon for the Dalish.

I'm playing on normal with Alistair, Leilana, and Quiran (angry big dude?) and my Mage who has gone nukes (cone of cold, fireball) and some healing.

My main gripes are mechanics and interface, the camera still feels a bit s*** sometimes, I guess I'm still trying to do things with the camera that I can't. The auto-zoom when I select a char is jarring, I just need to go with the flow and try to play more like it expects me to?

The fact that I don't seem to be able to set up my party's formation permanently like in BG is a continual pain in the arse when playing a clothie. I want my meat shield at the front, so I have to F2 Alistair, then = select all players every time we move out after a fight ... I'm probably going to spec the mage armor thingy just so I can have my s***head up front and not worry about it.

The combat still seems fun to me. There's a few trash encounters, but sometimes they can be challenging through weight of numbers. The bosses have (so far) needed me to at least think about what they are doing and try to prepare a strategy.

Spoiler:
Killing a dragon (even a little one) felt pretty epic. Looting the hoard was cool too!

The mage spectre thingy in the dungeon I am on that does the huge AE was awesome!

I don't mind reloading to learn new tactics do overcome fights, that's what F9 is for :)

I can see why it will get stale for people though. The combat on Normal and above is very tactical, even on dungeon trash which gets a bit yawn.
Spoiler:
The crypt I'm up to at the moment has a bad habit of spawning a fair few tough-ish undead all around you so you end up surrounded and slogging your way through

I guess you could turn it down to easy for a while and AE the f*** out of everything without worrying about friendly fire if you got bored grinding trash? :)

last edited by Hogfather at 13:24:43 16/Nov/09

Hoggy - Check settings about that auto-zoom, I don't remember my camera changing when I selected new party members.

Hmm will have to check then Meph - it even does it to me in the zoomed out tactical view which is pretty annoying if I'm just selecting my mage to cast a quick heal or something.

Do you use function keys to select characters?

last edited by Hogfather at 13:27:07 16/Nov/09

Yeah mate, I never really selected with clicking.
Dragons I faught in tactical view, and went into tactical view when using AOE/Cone spells.

Definitely doesn't zoom back in for me when using function keys or drag selecting a character.

On that note, I didn't see whether or not it does in fact auto-zoom if you're unpaused or not?
That could be a difference, though not one that makes a lot of sense.

Just a quick lolcheck - you're on PC rite? :p

Yeah, I'm doing the stuff in the Deep Roads at the moment, and its starting to feel like a bit of a grind. Maybe its just the environment, but I've found most of the stuff in Orzammar and the Deep Roads pretty boring, and nowhere near as interesting as the stuff in the Circle Tower or Redcliffe.

Its actually got to the point where I'm not sure I want to play the game through a second time now, because I'm not sure I could bring myself to do all the dwarven stuff again.

I'm not sure I could bring myself to do all the dwarven stuff again

On subsequent playthroughs I intend to easymode & remotely nuke the site of anything I find remotely boring.

For me after the first go its all about f***ing around with characters and attempting stupid s*** like soloing bosses with X spec.

Fighting the revenants seems like i am watching benny hill sometimes, attack them, then he decides he wants to kill morrigan and she just runs around a table while he occasionally casts pull and the rest of my team attacks him.

Also, was the Spoiler:
"andraste"
dragon supposed to just sit there and not move after you Spoiler:
use the horn
after i did that it just sat there and i shot at it from range while it occasionally used pull, seemed like it might have been a bug, i didnt realise you could do that the first time and just cast a spell on it to start the fight and he flew about and raped my team.

lol @ being able to go into the negatives with stats

Your tank shouldnt be losing agro against a rev if you chuck on threaten and a taunt. The first rev i fought on nightmare was the one in the mage tower (where you find a broken statue). Shale taunted once and just kept hitting it. I chain potted 5 mana pots between myself (mage) and morrigan and the rev just stood there getting his ass handed to him. Was abit of a let down considering i found him quite hard when i did it on my rogue on normal difficulty :/

and no the dragon shouldnt be standing still hah.

I've yet to start my duo Mage endeavor.
Mostly for what other people have listed - it's too soon to be going through some parts of the game again.

Orzammar was indeed, the lowest point of the game. And the Deep Roads just keep goin, and goin, and goin.

Though one redeeming factor in the deep roads:
Spoiler:
Just before you meet the darkspawn breeder thing - forget its name now; The poem being read out as you walk through that tunnel is some cool atmosphere